Why Ancient China's Economy Transitioned from the Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty was between the Han and Tang dynasties and the Ming and Qing dynasties. Although the Song Dynasty was still founded on agriculture, on the basis of the highly developed agricultural economy, many factors of industrial and commercial civilization, such as cities, money, commerce, credit, overseas trade, etc., have grown, and there are traces of new things such as hired labor, the practice of buying and selling, commercial credit, and pooling of capitals and partnerships, etc., which are already in the eve of the modern society. Compared with the Han and Tang dynasties, the most striking feature of the Song economy is the rapid growth of the economic component of the commodity economy in the traditional society. Since the Late Tang Dynasty, especially after the Song Dynasty, with the development of agricultural production, the increase of food surplus rate, the emergence of the coal and iron revolution, the expansion of handicraft production, as well as the advancement of means of transportation (such as canal boats and sea boats) and the improvement of transportation conditions (such as the Bianhe River and the coastal shipping), the commodity economy had ushered in its second period of upsurge after the Warring States period of the Qin and Han Dynasties. Previously unseen or although there are signs but not obvious new phenomena, this time but one by one in front of us.

One is the growth of commercial agriculture. Mulberry, bamboo, tea, fruits, vegetables, flowers and other cash crops as the main commercial planting accelerated the expansion, especially in the two Zhejiang Road, Taihu Lake basin, Chengdu Plain and coastal areas of Fujian, professional tea farmers, fruit farmers, sugar cane farmers, vegetable farmers emerged in large numbers, they and independent craftsmen together, began to transform into small commodity producers.

The second is the acceleration of urbanization. The number of cities and towns increased dramatically, the urban population swelled, the number of industrial and commercial workers in the cities increased, and the number of regional economic centers increased, resulting in the transformation of the traditional political cities into economic and commercial cities, and the momentum of urbanization became clearer day by day. At the same time, the city pattern has been significantly changed by the collapse of the classical Fangshi system, and urban commerce has broken through the geographical and temporal limitations, and the modern city style of setting up stores on the street can be seen for the first time.

Third is the change of commodity composition and the transformation of commercial nature. The composition of social commodities has undergone major changes, more and more means of subsistence (such as food, cloth, tea, etc.) and means of production (such as land, cattle, timber, coal, farm equipment, etc.) into circulation. The original trafficking-type commerce, which mainly served the upper social class and focused on luxury goods and local specialties, began to change into a large-scale commerce that focused on the daily production and daily necessities of the people.

Fourth, the rise of grass towns and the initial formation of local markets. In the economically developed or densely populated rural areas, as well as water and land terminals and transportation routes along the hole, "grass market" in batches, to grass market - town - regional economic center for the three-level Local markets began to take shape, and commodity-money relations gained more outposts to infiltrate and nibble at the self-sufficient natural economy.

Fifth, the rise of merchant groups and the prevalence of the concept of "profit-making". More and more bureaucrats, landlords, scholars, farmers into business activities, coastal farmers and even capital into overseas trade (the so-called "with leakage"). With the expansion of the merchant team and strong commercial capital, the actual status of the merchant class was improved, and the social influence of the merchants was also expanded. At the same time, the concept of profit-making (the so-called "market way"), which embodied the consciousness of merchants, had an increasing impact on the traditional concepts. The rise of the utilitarian school in eastern Zhejiang, represented by Ye Shi and Chen Liang, showed that the traditional Confucian doctrine of righteousness and profitability had cracked open.

Sixth, the expansion of overseas trade. Han and Tang dynasties of the land-based Silk Road at this time has been replaced by the sea "spice road", "ceramic road", the scale of its large-scale land-based Western and Eastern traffic is incomparable; and the scope of a wider range, and the Song Dynasty to establish foreign trade links have reached more than 60 countries and regions. At the same time, the Song Dynasty and Liao, Xia, Jin, Tubo, Dali and other neighboring regimes of material exchanges and economic ties not only did not stop for a moment, and the scale of the ever-expanding, increasingly diversified forms of questionable trade, smuggling trade, tea and horse trade and tribute trade and other forms of mastery, complement each other. The Song dynasty every year by the casting of millions of guan of copper also flow to the neighboring regions, almost become the "international currency".

Seven is the emergence of paper money and silver monetization. In the domestic and foreign markets at the same time to be opened up, the scale of commerce far beyond the previous generation, the original has the magic charm of the copper this means of exchange, because of its weight and low value and appeared to be overwhelmed (especially in the increasingly common long-distance transportation and the expansion of the volume of trade in the case), so the world's earliest paper money --- "Jiazi". The world's earliest paper money - "Jiaosi" in the early Northern Song Dynasty in Sichuan and Sichuan region took the lead in the historical stage of commodity exchange. Later, silver as the representative of the precious metal weighing currency also began to be among the circulation, thus forming a copper money, iron money, kozo coins, silver two parallel transitional monetary system. The "gold, silver, salt and banknote citing trading stores" all over Bianjing and Lin'an were the exchange offices for different currencies. Only in Lin'an City, there are more than 100 such gold and silver trading stores.

All this makes us believe that the Song Dynasty commodity economy has indeed developed to a new stage. It is no exaggeration to say that at this time the prosperity of our commodity economy, both in terms of scale and level, is still far ahead of any other countries and regions in the world at that time, that is, with the 18th century than the middle of the Qing Dynasty, but also not inferior to, at least, each has its own style.

Particularly in the Song Dynasty, the southeastern coastal areas, under the pull of overseas trade, a new, dynamic open market economy to rise, which is the real signposts since the Han and Tang dynasties within the agricultural economy of the significance of the major changes. It can be said that the dynasties before the Song Dynasty were landlocked countries with their heads resting on three rivers and facing northwest. However, since the middle of the Tang Dynasty, China began to change from an inland country to a land and sea country: Guangzhou, Quanzhou and other large seaports have risen one after another, and the southeast coastal areas backed by developed agriculture, handicrafts and commodity economy, showing a strong tendency to develop towards the sea. Especially after the Song Dynasty's southward transition, more dependent on foreign trade for the sake of the situation, Prickly Harbor that is Quanzhou at this time to become the world's largest port. Stimulated by the rapid development of overseas trade, the southeast region to the production of exchange value for their own commodity economy is increasingly prosperous, based on the division of labor and specialization of production as the basis of the market mechanism to play a greater role in economic life, so the original head of the Three Rivers, facing the northwest of the statehood, a change to the head of the southeast, facing the sea. The substantive connotation of this turnaround is the shift from a natural economy to a commodity economy, from a single planting economy to a variety of businesses, from basic self-sufficiency to the development of a specialized division of labor, from the main production of use value to the production of exchange value, from a customary orientation to a market orientation, from a closed economy to an open economy. All this shows that the Song Dynasty, especially in the South Song Dynasty, the southeast coastal belt of the commodity economy has developed to a new stage!

One of the main signs of the unprecedented prosperity of the commodity economy in the Song Dynasty is also the expansion of the market, including the domestic market and overseas markets are expanding rapidly. Historical facts show that the Song dynasty in the industrial and commercial civilization factors in the rapid growth of the historical environment, the initiation of the process of its primitive industrialization not only in time earlier than the northern shore of the Mediterranean countries and the British Isles, that is, in the scale and level of no less. This is mainly manifested in the following aspects:

One is the occurrence of the coal and iron revolution and the emergence of private mining and metallurgical workshops of wage labor.

The Northern Song Dynasty was marked by a surge in iron production and the popularization of the steel filling method, ushering in the second major change in China's iron and steel casting industry. This change was inspired by the large-scale mining and industrial utilization of coal. According to Mr. Xu Huimin's research, China's forefathers, although as early as the Han Dynasty has recognized the burning function of coal, but officially into the scale of mining and used as an industrial energy source (such as iron, porcelain) is in the Northern Song Dynasty, when the Hedong (now Shanxi), Hebei, Shaanxi and other roads of the coal mining industry is quite developed, and there are archaeological excavations as evidence. In order to distinguish from the original charcoal (then called "soft charcoal"), the Song Dynasty appeared "stone charcoal", "mining charcoal" and other words to refer to coal. The Song dynasty, there are words such as "soft charcoal" and "mining charcoal" to refer to coal. The Song dynasty will be drafted "official" five six of the forty-eight have "soft charcoal field, draw buy stone charcoal field" words.

The rise of the coal mining industry both to alleviate the contradiction of the shortage of traditional fuel wood and charcoal, improve the production of iron (it is estimated that the annual output of iron in the Northern Song Dynasty in the 35,000 tons to 150,000 tons, close to the early 18th century, the whole of Europe 145,000 tons to 180,000 tons of the level); and at the same time due to the improvement of the furnace temperature and smelting efficiency to promote the change of the casting technology; in particular, to the "raw and cooked mixed category" as the characteristics of the large-scale promotion of the steel filling method; and as a corollary of all these agricultural tools and various types of tools of cooked iron steel blade, these major advances constitute a picture of the Song Dynasty coal and iron revolution of the spectacular scene.

The second is the rise of private Zhuo tube wells and the economic struggle of hired workers in Sichuan and Shu areas.

Beijing Song Renzong Qinglian years (1041-1048), first appeared in Sichuan Jingyan County Joktsu wells, marking the drilling technology from the large mouth shallow wells to small mouth deep wells transition. In terms of drilling technology, it pioneered the "impact method", and the "huan blade" made of ripe iron steel blade should be the first deep well drill bit in the world, which is the forerunner of modern chiseling and drilling technology; in terms of well wall molding technique, it pioneered the "casing In the well wall molding technology, the first "casing method", the use of bamboo casing (this is the Zhuo tube wells named from, Zhuo, bamboo, a sound of the turn) is obviously the predecessor of the Ming and Qing dynasties of wooden conduit and modern copper conduit; in the chip extraction process, the first "living door fan mud tube"; in the drawing of brine technology, there is a "bottomless and the hole" drawing of brine. In the process of drawing brine, the original leather bag was replaced by a "bottomless and holeless" brine-drawing cylinder, which opens when entering water and closes when leaving water. These major innovations laid down the basic principles of modern deep-well drilling technology in all aspects, and thus were regarded as the "father of modern oil drilling" by the history of science and technology.

It is because the Zhuo tube wells essentially refreshed the old technology of shallow wells with large mouths, and showed great superiority in the cost of drilling, brine quality, production efficiency, etc., so they spread rapidly as soon as they appeared, and spread all over the area of Lingshou, Jiashou, and Rongshou of southern Sichuan in just two or three decades, "even the creeks and valleys, and the zaoyu scales ", dotted with thousands of stars. Mr. Guo Zhengzhong, an expert in the history of the salt industry, relied on the Zongxin Xining years Lingzhou governor Wen Tong's sangs, proved that not only the same existed in the well salt industry in Sichuan, the employment relationship, but also took place in order to improve the working conditions of the economic struggle. According to Wen Tong's report, there were more than a hundred well workshops in Jingyan County at that time, each employing "40 or 50 to 30 or 20 people", and most of the thousands of craftsmen came from "other counties" and had been detached from the land; their livelihoods were "Their way of earning a living was to sell their labor; if they were not satisfied with the working conditions or treatment during the period of their employment, they would join hands with each other and protest collectively, so to speak, "fanning each other, and the group clamored"; if there was no improvement, they would settle accounts with the owner of the well, "the hoi polloi", and demanded wages.

Third, the nature of the ceramic industry and its increasingly expanding commodity production at home and abroad.

Ceramic production in the Song Dynasty into maturity, so far found in the Song Dynasty porcelain kiln sites throughout the country's 17 provinces and more than 130 counties, the vast majority of which are the nature of the kiln. In particular, Fujian Road, Dehua kiln and Jinjiang, Xiamen and other porcelain kilns, as well as Quanzhou Magnetic Kiln, Anxi, Nan'an, Tong'an and other kilns, is the production base of the bulk of the export of porcelain in Quanzhou, Prickly Harbor. Compass navigation in the large "sea ship" above, "merchants occupy the storage of goods, people get a few feet Xu, under the storage of goods, lying on it at night, the goods are more pottery, the size of the set, no less than a gap in the ground." Japanese scholars Misugi Takamine years of fieldwork along the Silk Road, published in 1979, "Maritime Silk Road" book, in the second chapter of the Song Dynasty porcelain in Singapore, Jakarta, Indonesia, Saigon, Vietnam, India Mysore, Madras State, Pakistan's Bamburu site, West Asia, Iraq's Samara site, as well as North Africa, Egypt, such as the distribution of Fosterton and the distribution of the realities of the region. South Korean scholar Choi Chunsi said, "North Korea found Chinese porcelain, Song porcelain, especially the Northern Song Dynasty products in the largest number, mainly in the south-central coastal areas of the Korean Peninsula," and the product "almost all the famous kilns of the Song Dynasty products." This shows that the Song dynasty ceramics industry in its main part of the nature of the production of goods, and has a wide range of overseas markets.

Fourth, the emergence of tens of thousands of textile machine households and the formation of the practice of buying merchants.

Song Dynasty "machine households" generally by family members to fill the labor force, specializing in textiles for a living in the family workshop, the nature of the independent small commodity producers. There are also a small number of machine households to implement the production of hired labor. According to Mr. Chi-man estimated that the Northern Song Dynasty, there are about 100,000 machine households, a considerable number. The problem is that these machine households in addition to a small number of cities (such as Jinhua, East Zhejiang Province is "the city people to weave as the main, known as the world of clothing, so particularly rich.) Outside, most of the distribution in the countryside, their products need a middleman will be centralized, transported to the market, in order to become a real commodity, so the buyers appeared. Yongle Dadian" volume 13161 contained "Chen Tai grievance dream", that is, reflecting the typical example of Jiangxi package buyers, when in the Southern Song Emperor Xiaozong Chunxi years (12th century 70s). Chen Tai was originally Fuzhou cloth merchants, the beginning of each year to Chong'an, Le'an, Jinxi and other places of the machine households to issue productive loans ("loan out the capital"), to the summer and fall and then go to these places to ask for hemp cloth, and then to the outside world to transport and sale. As the business grows bigger and bigger, there are Zeng Xiaolu and other "powerful masters", "A head" as the agent of the money to collect cloth. Le'an alone "accumulated cloth to thousands of pi". From the "such as this for a long time" to see, this practice as early as before Chunxi has continued for quite some time, is not an occasional incident. This practice has been in its essential features with the Ming and Qing dynasties "account room" is no different, are package buyers practice. Mr. GuoZhengZhong pointed out, in two Zhejiang silk weaving industry, sichuan damask industry, also have "collect silk loan", "machine account" and "pre-schedule silk spending money" and other practices6, this shows that the song dynasty The buyers are widely distributed geographically, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Sichuan and other places can see the figure of their activities.

Fifth, in the tea, paper, printing and other industries, also private workshops dominate, engaged in commercial production, with a sizable market, within which the existence of hired labor can also be seen. For more details, please refer to the relevant chapters of my book.

Through the above brief outline, we can see that the initiation of the primitive industrialization process in the Song Dynasty was all-encompassing. Under the impetus of the Coal and Iron Revolution, the various sectors of the handicraft industry, including metallurgy, ceramics, well salt, textiles, paper making, printing, etc., once showed a comprehensive prosperity; the private handicraft industry rose in full force, except for the casting of money, the military industry and a few other trades, its dominant position has been established, and to varying degrees, has a regional market, the market, and even the overseas market; during which the modern color of the employment relationship, the package buyer The employment relationship and the practice of buying and selling were also growing tenaciously during the Song Dynasty. All this leads us to believe that the Song handicrafts entered a new period of development, a period that prepared the conditions for the emergence of modern industry and provided the historical preconditions for the advent of the capitalist mode of production, which we call the pre-modernization period. If this momentum can be maintained for two or three centuries without being interrupted, it will certainly lay a solid foundation for the subsequent factory (machine) industrialization.